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Altanis
“I never met an Altan that wasn’t a complete asshole.” ~Chingy Altanis is a city of criminals and undesirables built upon Skaldjr's largest mossberg. It floats around Svol Nirin ransacking small kingdoms and villages. The floating city acts as a vehicle to bring its maurading inhabitants to anything they could hope to steal. Altans use this to their advantage, flying down on tiny one and two-man planes and attaching tethers to anything they could possibly want or need, letting the island carry it away and then hoisting it up at their convenience. Origin & Transition The city was built approximately a long time ago before ever becoming a flying city, where it served as a fortress of sorts for a bandit king and his clan. Sometime around many years later a mossburg growing in the caves under the city reached the final stage of its life and rose slowly into the air, beginning the bandit camp's life in the skies. On the ground, no one could claim to know what had happened. The bandit fort simply disappeared over the course of a night, and the only evidence that it might have once been there was a giant crater around ten times the size of the old fort. For years the surrounding settlements silently praised whatever god had come and smote the bandit king and his ruthless men. Time passed, and stories and complaints began to pop up regarding men tying cattle and valuables to magical ropes and making off with them into the sky. It wasn’t until the countryside surrounding the city of Rundleoff was completely and utterly ransacked by an army of men strapped in strange flying machines, that folks began putting two and two together. Four was finally reached with the surprise attack on Rundleoff, where two years surplus of food, and enough valuables to buy the whole town were stolen and flown off before the militia could even properly arm themselves. Culture Altanis has a loose and open culture with nothing in the way of a governing body. Wealth dictates what you can get out of an Altan, and for the common Altan wealth is acquired by taking it from people on the ground. While crime is still common in the city, it’s surprisingly no more common than in any other place; there is an unspoken code amongst most Altan people not to take too much from each other, lest any thieves take a long trip over the edge. The common misconception on the ground is that Altanis is off-limits, and that the inhabitants of the city will kill any who approach on sight. The truth is that Altanis is always welcoming of new blood, and anyone who can find a way up to them and who can pay his own way is welcomed into the city. Those interested in flight, whether from an engineering or practical perspective, tend to flock there to learn about planes. Relationship with the World Though Altanis has no ingrained political structure, they are considered on the ground to be a major world power on Svol. Some of the more naive kings in history have tried to negotiate peace with them by offering up tributes of money and food. While some Altans might have been appeased, the ones who weren’t would promptly swoop down and steal even more. In more recent years, the promise of being held up by the sky-people has been easier to manage especially for countries like The State, who have standing armies spread throughout their borders instead of just knights and militiamen. Altans in Popular Culture Since the discovery of Altanis, the fear and mystique behind the floating island has weighted heavily on the creative minds of Skaldjr. Many plays and stories are written with an Altan antagonist, but more recently Altans have been working their way in as good supporting characters and even protagonists. Altan Heroes *Guy 1 *Guy 2 *Woman 3 *Woman 4 Code of Banditry We stab other people in the back for money, not other bandits. Category:Skaldjr